The Bombay High Court’s order upholding the prohibition on wearing hijab, niqab and burqa at Acharya Marathe College in Chembur has been challenged in the Supreme Court.
Three of the nine students who had moved HC against the college’s diktat against religious attire have filed a Special Leave Petition (SLP) at the apex court. The petition, drafted by Adv Hamza Lakdawala and filed through Adv Abiha Zaidi, objects to the HC’s view that the college’s ‘dress code’ is aimed at discouraging discrimination. The petitioners have also faulted the court for accepting the college’s assertion that it has a right to impose restrictions on students’ dresses without citing any relevant law or rules.
The college caused controversy in May after it introduced a ‘dress code’ for all undergraduate students, requiring them to only wear ‘formal’ and ‘decent’ clothes, while specifically forbidding religious attire including hijab, naqab and burqa – the customary coverings worn by Muslim women. The instructions were challenged in the court by nine female students, who believed that the decision was discriminatory and infringed on their religious and personal freedoms.
However, after a favourable order from the court on June 26, the college started evicting from classrooms not only those donning religious attire but also the other students who wore jeans and t-shirts, clothing deemed violative of its sartorial rules. This led to many of the students leaving the college for other institutes.
In their plea before SC, the students argued that even though the college’s dress code appears neutral, it primarily affects Muslim women. The prohibition resulted in female Muslim students being stigmatised and not being able to attend classes, which also has resulted in victimisation and indirect discrimination under the guise of enforcing discipline, claim the petitioners.
“Many of the said students come from conservative families/societies where education for the female gender is actively discouraged. Such cultures only allow the female gender to study if they adhere to dressing conservatively, ie, in a hijab, nakab, burkha, etc. and following other tenets of their culture/faith. If the said liberty is not granted to such students, most of them will be forced to drop out of formal education and decades of progress achieved towards promotion of education for the female gender will be lost,” reads the petition.
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The petitioners also contend that banning hijab and burqa has no relation to maintaining discipline, the stated objective behind enforcing the dress code. “The impugned instruction is manifestly arbitrary as the proposition of achieving “formal and decent” dressing amongst students by prohibiting the wearing of the hijab, niqab, burkha, etc. is so absurd and irrational that no reasonable person could justify the same. It is submitted that the object behind the Impugned Instruction is to achieve artificial uniformity at the cost of the student’s right to personal liberty and decisional autonomy and the justification given, i.e., of achieving “formal and decent” dressing amongst students, is farce,” reads the petition.
The plea argues that the HC also erred in relying on the Karnataka HC’s judgment upholding the ban on hijab in education institutes of Karnataka. They pointed out that the verdict was challenged in SC, where a two-judge bench in 2022 delivered a split verdict on the validity of the prohibition. The issue is yet to be heard by a larger apex court bench.
